


Carry

by Dellefox



Series: Pridecember 2020 [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Failed attempts at re-living glory days, Fun at your spouse's expense, M/M, Pridecember 2020, Prideshipping, Seto Kaiba is a cranky old man, Seto refusing to accept he's not young anymore, YGO Pridecember 2020, altered character ages, figure skating AU, spot the Star Trek reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27823708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dellefox/pseuds/Dellefox
Summary: In which Seto Kaiba tries to relive his glory days on the ice and fails miserably. First fic for Pridecember2020!Prompt: Carry
Relationships: Atem/Kaiba Seto, Kaiba Seto/Yami Yuugi, Kaiba Seto/Yami Yuugi | Atem
Series: Pridecember 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037481
Comments: 13
Kudos: 18





	Carry

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings!  
> After many, many years of not writing, I somehow have stumbled back into this fandom and now here I am. xD 
> 
> I figured Pridecember was a good way to kick off my writing. 
> 
> To differentiate between Ryou and his dark half, I'm referring to Yami Bakura as 'Bakura,' and Ryou as, well, 'Ryou.' ^_^ 
> 
> This is based on an AU I had floating in my head back in high school, over twenty years ago. I've been a figure skater since age five, so of course if found its way into the fics I wrote as a teen. I was about halfway through Battle City at the time and did not know their actual ages(When I tell you I LAUGHED after learning Seto was the youngest...). Ages in the AU are, as a result, very very not canon:
> 
> Seto - 40  
> Atem and Bakura - 38  
> Malik - 36
> 
> There's also a very smol Star Trek Easter egg in here. xD It should be pretty easy to find if you're familiar with the newest shows.

“Well, well, well…what have we here?”

Atem sauntered into the living room and took a long, lazy, smug look at his husband, who was currently lying on the living room sofa with a rather large ice pack under his back.

“Sheer. Fucking. Hubris.” Seto’s response came out in a low growl. He glared up at the ceiling and refused to look at Atem. Atem chuckled quietly and sat down on the arm of the sofa, at Seto’s feet.

“And here I was, thinking you were smarter than this, more mature than this…but _nooooo,_ you just had to try and relive your adolescence.”

“Are you going somewhere with this?” Seto snapped. He continued to try to bore a hole into the ceiling.

“I’m just saying that when one takes a seven-year hiatus that maybe attempting a double axel on your third day back on the ice isn’t the wisest thing to do.”

“Bakura’s is _consistent!_ Fuck, he’s working on getting his triples back and he’s probably going to do it! He already has salchow, and he’ll have the toe loop at by the end of the year.” Seto felt muscles in his back begin to cramp and he shifted around to try and stop it.

“Bakura didn’t take a seven-year break. He’s literally never stopped competing since high school. Has he cut back? Of course, we’re adults now and we have lives outside of the rink. We’re almost forty. You _are_ forty. But I honestly don’t think he’ll get all of them back. He just wants a couple to show the kids how it’s done. It’s also worth noting that Bakura used to have a quad, and you never quite got there, so he has that advantage on you. And we’re at the adult level now, Seto. We don’t technically _need_ triples. It’s for fun.”

“I’m going to _need_ triples if Bakura keeps this crap up. Triple toe loop, Atem!”

Silence.

“Seto…he didn’t try and taunt you into doing this, did he?”

“…no. In fact, he warned me against it.”

Atem let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. Yes, Seto had mellowed out considerably since his twenties, but the competitive streak would never, ever die. “The loudest shit-starter in the group tries to talk you down and you ignore him? One might say you had this coming, Seto."

Seto exhaled through his nose. “…Malik showed you the Live Barn footage, didn’t he?”

“Oh, yes. Several times, actually.”

As bad as Atem felt for Seto, he did have to admit the whole incident was really quite hilarious. Seto was short on the jump by nearly half a rotation and came down hard on his right toe pick as a result. He’d tried to step out of the jump in an attempt to avoid a fall, but lost his equilibrium, and his right foot swung around and flung him completely off balance. His left foot joined his right and he landed hard on his left hip. Malik had gleefully showed him the footage, unable to stop giggling.

Seto shifted again and felt the cold pack underneath him squish. “Fuck, I need to get another ice pack.”

“You should probably move to the bed,” Atem replied.

“…probably.”

More silence as Seto gathered the willpower to get up and move.

“Would you like me to carry you?”

Seto finally moved his gaze from the ceiling to his husband and ignored the trademark smirk upon his husband’s lips.

“I will be fine, thank you,” he hissed.

“At least let me help you up.” Atem slid off the arm of the sofa and very gently eased Seto upright into a sitting position and gave him a gentle kiss on the top of his head. From there, Seto was able to slowly stand. “Thank you,” Seto murmured.

“Get yourself to bed, my love. I will get you another ice pack.”

Atem was given a return kiss of gratitude before Seto slowly shuffled his way to their bedroom.

Maybe next time he would try running through his single jumps first.

**Author's Note:**

> Live Barn is a website that provides 24-hour livestreams of the rinks they contract with. It’s basically a webcam for ice rinks. The camera is placed on one end of the rink and provides an overhead view of the entire ice surface. 
> 
> Salchow(pronounced Sal-cow) was invented by Ulrich Salchow, hence the strange jump name. 
> 
> See a triple salchow here: https://youtu.be/WnuRwII5T80
> 
> See a triple toe loop here: https://youtu.be/F2141alBn5U
> 
> And see the double axel that threw out Seto’s back here: https://youtu.be/l_emJhcFnXg
> 
> Feedback is GREATLY appreciated! It's been over a decade since I've written anything that wasn't school or work-related, and I proofread this thing to heck but there's always room for improvement. :) 
> 
> I will be re-visiting this AU frequently.


End file.
